CARE OF STABLE MANURE 



animation of clay floors after use will show that 

 valuable constituents of the manure have been 

 escaping. The soils of the country cannot af- 

 ford the loss, and careful farm management re- 

 quires acceptance of the truth that a tight floor 

 is as necessary to the stable as to the granary. 

 The difficulty in supplying a sufficient amount of 

 absorbents on tight floors only emphasizes the 

 loss where floors are not water-tight. 



Use of Preservatives. The use of land-plaster 

 in stables helps to prevent loss of the nitrogen- 

 content through fermentation. Its value does 

 not lie chiefly in physical action as an absorbent, 

 but the beneficial results come through chemi- 

 cal action. The volatile part of the manure is 

 changed into a more stable form. In recent years 

 this preservative has fallen somewhat into disuse, 

 as acid phosphate contains like material and also 

 supplies phosphoric acid to the manure. The 

 phosphoric acid content of stable manure is too 

 low for all soils, and the reenforcement by means 

 of acid phosphate would be good practice even if 

 there were no preservative effect. The use of 

 50 pounds of acid phosphate to each ton of 

 manure will assist materially in preserving the 

 nitrogen, and the gain in phosphoric acid will 



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